Sightreading books by Anna Dunwoodie and Lisa Williamson

Sightreading for Harp Book One

A resource book designed for student harpists by two teachers to give beginning students practice in sightreading. These exercises are all original compositions, and can be easily taught or practiced on a daily basis. The 250 four and eight-measure exercises are divided into four sections, progressing from very easy exercises to more advanced, with quarter notes being the shortest note. With a few exceptions, chords are not used. This book is suitable for lever and pedal harp, however there are frequent key signature changes from exercise to exercise. A must for every teacher to include in conditioning, and nurturing the young harpist!

Sightreading for Harp Book Two

Book Two is approximately grades 3-5 progressively getting harder. The examples in this book have been written so lever harps have to set a lever (in about half of the examples) at the beginning and pedal harpist will have to change a pedal somewhere through it. We’ve achieved this by writing the accidental only in one octave and using it as a natural in the rest. By the end of the book they should be confidently playing in 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 3/8 and 6/8, from 3 flats to 4 sharps, 3 note chords, all rhythms including all dotted notes and runs of 4 semiquavers and a wide range of dynamics, articulation and tempo marking. The first half of the exercises are only 8 bars long progressing to 16 bars for the last 25 or 30 examples! So there are 180 exercises in total!

Sightreading for Pedal Harp Book Three

Sightreading for Lever Harp Book Three

Book Three contains exercises at approximately grades 6, 7 and 8 levels. Each book contains 90 exercises; these are based on the same material but altered to suit the different requirements of each instrument. The exercises demand technical skills as expected at this level such as etouffes, 4-fingered arpeggios, glissando, polyrhythms, pres de la table, xylophonics, harmonics, lever changes and slides and increasingly difficult pedal changes and pedal slides. The use of mixed meter, irregular beat divisions, and a wide range of tonality including bitonal, whole tonal, atonal and modal music gives variety to the exercises which increase in length throughout the book. As in the previous books, the lever and pedal pre-settings are indicated at the start of each exercise and there are explanatory notes for some of the technique. In an effort to move the music from the realm of an exercise into real music, some of the exercises have titles and become short programmatic pieces.